New Jersey Governor Chris Christie speaks with Robert Hilton, Long Branch, after at event at Woody's Ocean Grille in Sea Bright, N.J., Thursday where his re-election was endorsed by the town's Democratic Mayor Dina Long. Hilton discussed the abuse of eminent domain in Long Branch with the Governor, Feb. 21, 2013. (Photo: PETER ACKERMAN/STAFF)

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie held another one of his trademark townhall meeting. This one was held at the St. Francis of Assisi Community Center Gymnasium in Long Beach Twp, April 30, 2013. (Photo: PETER ACKERMAN/STAFF)

June 20, 2013: Gov. Chris Christie was the guest of honor when the Realogy Corporation held its ribbon-cutting ceremonies at its new corporate headquarters on Park Avenue in Madison, N.J. (Photo: Bob Karp / DAILY RECORD)

Gov. Chris Christie walks with his son Andrew, 20, in Long Branch Tuesday.
MARY FRANK/STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER Gov. Christie walks beside his son Andrew, 20, as he greets the public at Pier Village in Long Branch for a Clean Beaches and Clean Water Press Conference and Boardwalk Walk, Aug. 27, 2013. (Photo: MARY FRANK / STAFF)

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie speaks to volunteers working on a sheetrocking project at the Seaside Park, NJ, firehouse Tuesday morning, October 29, 2013. The Governor is touring the state on the one year anniversary of superstorm Sandy hitting the shore. (Photo: THOMAS P. COSTELLO / STAFF)

Governor Chris Christie poses with Elaine Konopka, a Weber Avenue resident who lost her home to Sandy flooding and has accepted a buyout. The governor was on hand to meet with first responders as well as Super Storm Sandy survivors, at Engine Company No.1 on the anniversary of the storm, Tuesday October 29, 2013. (Photo: Kathy Johnson/MyCentralJersey Courier News)

New Jerseyans don't seem to be in love with Gov. Chris Christie anymore. A plurality believe the state is headed in the wrong direction. And a growing number of people are tuning out when it comes to the George Washington Bridge lane-closure scandal.

These findings were all part of a recent Fairleigh Dickinson University PublicMind poll that sought to measure the governor's approval ratings, among other things. But what should we make of it all?

It seems we're tired of everything, and we're not sure anything is going to get better.

This is our New Jersey, where misery seems part of the landscape. We had a reprieve for a while, but we're back in the doldrums, driven there by more scandal, a sputtering economy and a governor hip deep in the state's troubles.

"Governor Christie's ability to maintain the support of a plurality of voters in a Democratic state, despite his troubles of late, is good. But with 46 percent of voters saying the state is heading in the wrong direction, his narrative of effective leadership is thrown in doubt," said Krista Jenkins, the PublicMind polling director.

That narrative is key here.

Christie, when he was first elected, was brutally honest with New Jerseyans: The state was in rough shape financially, and we needed to cut back drastically to put it on firmer footing. He resisted — and still resists — any effort to raise taxes, saying it would blunt a shaky economic recovery.

As Christie moved into the second half of his first term, the narrative shifted. The governor then argued the state had turned a corner. Hard work still needed to be done, but the Jersey Comeback had begun.

Only it hadn't really. Job growth lagged behind that of neighboring states. Revenues didn't increase as dramatically as the Christie administration said they would. But spending did increase. The state budgets signed by Christie began to creep up again.

The governor showed his mettle during superstorm Sandy in October 2012 and the aftermath of the devastation. His ample leadership skills were on full display. He rode a wave of popularity into a second term that began this year.

Soon after the November 2013 election, the governor's approval ratings began to erode, sped along by the bridge scandal that reached his office and cost one of his deputy chiefs of staff her job. What was a 73 percent job approval rating in January 2013 is now a 44 percent approval rating. Similarly, 63 percent of those polled in January 2013 said the state was headed in the right direction. That number now stands at 39 percent.

And that's where the change in narrative comes in. The theme of the summer of 2014 is not a Jersey Comeback. It's "No Pain, No Gain." We are revisiting the days of 2010 and 2011, when public pension ills were the bugaboo. The governor is on tour telling everyone the problems with the public pension system are so severe that they threaten to "eat us alive."

The governor no doubt will say the same thing in Belmar this week when he holds the second of his "No Pain, No Gain" tour stops.

What of that fatigued electorate?

It's no wonder they aren't optimistic. In the space of four years, we've gone from a state teetering on the edge of the abyss, to a state roaring back amid some kind of economic miracle, then back to a state staring into the gaping maw of a fiscal beast intent on devouring our paychecks whole.

Here's the thing: It's been the same governor selling us these different narratives throughout those four years.

The blip is that short window of happy days that Christie sold us just two years ago. The statistics show that story was never true. Despite the governor's short-lived attempt to tell us otherwise, we've always been skating on the edge.